The present invention relates, generally, to mechanical seals, which are fitted to rotating equipment in virtually all types of industries.
A mechanical seal comprises a “floating” component which is mounted axially movable around the rotary shaft of, for example, a pump or a “static” component which is axially fixed, typically being secured to a housing. The floating component has a flat annular end face, i.e., its seal face, directed towards a seal face of the static component. The floating component is urged towards the static component to close the seal faces together to form a sliding face seal, usually by means of one or more spring members. In use, one of the floating and static components rotates; this component is therefore referred to as the rotary component. The other of the floating and static components does not rotate and is referred to as the stationary component.
Those seals whose floating component is rotary are described as rotary seals. If the floating component is stationary, the seal is referred to as a stationary seal.
If the sliding seal between the rotary and stationary components are assembled and pre-set prior to despatch from the mechanical seal manufacturing premises, the industry terminology for this is “cartridge seal.” Alternatively, if the rotary and stationary components are despatched individually (unassembled) from the mechanical seal manufacturing premises, then the industry terminology used is “component seal.”
More particularly, this invention relates to a component seal which is used in applications where there is a large amount of contaminates in the product. These contaminates can become entrenched between moving components in traditional designs of mechanical seals causing these components to “hang up” and therefore resulting in premature failure of the seal. One common method of stopping these contaminates becoming entrenched is to use a rubber component such as a bellows to create a seal between moving components. The limitation to these bellows is that they are either commonly used with a single spring component seals which create uneven face pressures or the bellows can become detached allowing contaminates to enter the bellows sealed area.